Anon (TGT) 37III/1 — Ekl ‘lacking’
Ekl vasa ógn á Stiklar-
óblíð -stǫðum síðan.
Óblíð ógn vasa ekl síðan á Stiklarstǫðum.
Unpleasant fighting was not lacking later at Stiklestad.
notes
[1] ekl ‘lacking’: This reading of ekl as an adj. follows Skj B. The word, not otherwise attested, is related to the f. noun ekla ‘lack’ and the adv. ekla ‘scarcely’. (Sturtevant 1933, 96 derives the noun from the adj. *ain-kil- > MLG ēnkel.) Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, III) takes ekl as an adv. (cf. AEW: ekl, ekla) and reads Ógn vara síðan ekl óblíð ‘The fighting was not a little unpleasant then’. This reading produces more subtle litotes. Along similar lines, Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 228) sees a second instance of tmesis in *eklóblíð, an antonym to allóblíðr, but *allóblíðr appears to be a ghost word in CVC (cf. ONP: allóblíðr).